Beijing Hotels
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Beijing
Entry 26 of 29 | show all | print this entry |
Tues 20th June
Woke up still feeling a little tired, something somewhere needs oiling as it squeaked all night and the ride was a little bumpy. At 7am we pull into the station and head out to find a taxi to the hotel. We get in a taxi queue but no-one will take us! Only the expensive touts wanting to charge 20yuan are hovering around trying to pick off the remains. No, we're not getting screwed again and tried in vain to find a metered taxi. Still no luck. We think the hotel is too near for them to bother with, so with 30kgs each and not sure where we're going we head off on foot. We eventually find the hotel, which wasn't too far away and check-in to our very nice 4 star room and sleep for a few hours more. At midday we head out to find the CITS office to book a Great Wall tour for tomorrow. Walking further into town we locate the Red Wall Hotel that we're booked into on Friday to start our Trans Mongolian (TM) trip. We booked into the Novotel for 3 days to have a bit of 4 star luxury before having to move to the 2 star Red Wall for one night which is included in our TM tour. It looked ok for a 2 star but we'd heard that communication there wasn't that great and we wanted to be pampered for a bit. We then found a food court that had a bakery in it and stopped for lunch. It was quite comical as we had a roll called 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bacon'. Very tasty, so we bought some more for breakfast (hotel breakfast 100yuan each). Still feeling tired and Cat had a few blisters on her big toe, we headed back to the hotel for a rest. After our rest we walked down to Tiananmen Square to check it out. There are more buildings on it than I'd thought including Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. From there we had a wander around and found a restaurant that did 'hor hor' (hot pot). We had a red and a white broth to cook our meat and vegetables in. The red was quite spicey. Cat had a 1.5ltr bottle of Sprite and I had ltr of local beer. The walk back was interesting, I can tell you.
Wed 21st June
Up at 6am for our 6.45am pick up and tour to the Ming Tombs and The Great Wall. First stop the Ming Tombs and a good look around the temples and towers. Just out from the tombs is a Chinese medicine centre which we stopped at for a talk on their research and a check-up from their local doctors. I apparently have weak kidneys and for 460Yuan they could give me 15 days of tablets that would help. All this from a look at my tongue and a feel of my pulse, oh and a bit of body language of course. Cat on the other hand was told that she was anaemic and lacked iron and could give her something for that too. (It's cos she's white, innit!) Nowt to do with the rich food and water then! Think we'll reserve judgement on that one.
Next, the jade factory. The one thing I hate about tours is that they take you places that try to sell you something, but this is where we had our very early lunch at 11.15am as well. Finally, after lunch we head to the Badaling section of The Great Wall. We head up in a rollercoaster type cable car to save walking up the steep bit. Once there we trudge along with loads of other tourists up this impressive feat of engineering. It is absolutely amazing to be finally walking/climbing on The Great Wall of China, which gives me such a sense of satisfaction. It was very tring in places, but well worth the effort for the amazing scenery. There was of course plenty of market stalls trying to sell you anything from water to photos on a horse or camel, would you believe? On the way back we stopped at a silk factory (more blooming sales stuff) which is right next to the half built Olympics stadium, which we were more interested in.
Back at our hotel, we got a quick bite to eat then back to our room to do some hand washing. Couldn't find a laundrette and the hotel charges per item, so hand washing it is and a fun filled night it will be.
Thurs 22nd June
A nice long lie-in this morning as we were both knackered from a long day and a late night doing the washing. After a late breakfast, we walked down to the Temple of Heaven, just south of Tiananmen Square and spent 3 hours looking around some more beautiful buldings and gardens. We couldn't see all of it, as certain parts were being renovated for 2008, but what we saw was very nice. After dinner we returned back to the hotel, exhausted and ready for bed.
Fri 23rd June
Got up around 9am had breakfast, did some shopping and then packed early ready to move to the Red Wall Hotel. After checking out we got a taxi to the Red Wall. As always there was so much traffic, it took us ages and cost more than planned. We checked in and promptly changed rooms as they had given us a twin and yet again Cat had to sort it out. Finally, in our room, we had a laugh at the view from the window. We were warned on a website that the views weren't great and it wasn't called the Red Wall Hotel for nothing. That is all you can see, a red brick wall! We weren't bothered as we weren't spending much time here, only to sleep and get up early for our Trans Mongolian train in the morning. Hence, why we stayed previously at the Novotel.
We grabbed a few nibbles from a bakery down the road and headed to the back door of the Forbidden City. We spent a few hours looking around at the very similar but impressive buildings, but found a little hard to navigate backwards!
Apart from the gardens, everything was a little monotonous (it was also stinking hot!) and so we decided to shorten our visit, see the main sites and leave via the front door opposite Tiananmen Square.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for ice cream and a well deserved cold drink and rested in our room for a while. We finished off the evening, our last night in Beijing, with a meal of Beijing (Peking) Duck in a local restaurant. Nice duck, shame about the service! Then again that kind of sums up China for us. Beautiful places but a totally different way of life!
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